Six Little Lambs: A Prologue
by eden000
Summary: This story serves as a prologue to the events in seasons 1 and 2. Namely, it's an exploration of how Helena, Beth, Cosima, Sarah, Allison and Rachel came to be so different from one another.


**Chapter 1: Helena's Playground**

Helena looked out the convent window, muttering to herself in Ukrainian. _O ni! vony povernulysya, _she thought to herself. Oh no, they're back. She was talking about the other orphans, of course.

There weren't very many of them. They would come and go so frequently that little Helena, the only "regular," had stopped bothering to make friends. She smoothed back her unruly curls and looked out at the field below. The group of three children, ranging in ages from four to twelve, had been taken on a field trip to the nearby mausoleum. Helena was forbidden from joining because earlier that day, she had bitten one of the little boys on the forearm. He had bled a little bit. _Boh_, God, she thought to herself. How people overreact!

The three children below her were gathered together like little warmongers, each wearing the crimson-red hats that were convent-issued attire. They looked like dry matches, she thought absently to herself.

She'd been locked in the room for the past six hours, and she was really starting to need to use the bathroom.

"_Meni potribno popysaty!" _She shouted,_ "Dayte meni popysaty!" _

As if they would come to help her. She had been here for as long as she could remember, and in that whole time she had learned one important lesson: she had no family, and she never would. After all, what family would let their daughter whither here, with strict rules and even stricter nuns? The place was as rough as a knife's edge, and no place for children. She knew that well enough, even at the age of twelve.

Almost immediately after relieving herself in the corner of the room, Helena heard the door begin to open. Helena poised herself to run past the nun's skirt-covered legs, but stopped when she saw whom it was.

"Sister Dariya!" She exclaimed happily.

There were few benevolent nuns at the institution where Helena lived, but she loved Sister Dariya. Most importantly, she allowed herself to believe that Sister Dariya loved her too.

"_Moya dochka," _Dariya purred, "my daughter." She took Helena into her arms, suppressing the urge to wrinkle her nose at Helena's "accident" in the corner. "They've said that I can take you out now, dear Helena."

Helena felt herself begin to cry, and held it in. She'd been practicing.

Dariya ran a finger over the girl's bony cheek. "They told me to give you ten lashings, but I seem to have forgotten that. I won't tell if you don't," she said, releasing Helena.

They both turned, hearing footsteps in the hallway.

"AND DON'T YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN!" Dariya shouted at her, "AND GO BRUSH YOUR HAIR, IT IS AS IMPOLITE AS YOU ARE, GIRL!"

Dariya regarded the blonde little girl with kind eyes, willing her to understand that she was just trying to keep her place in the church. After all, she wasn't the only one for whom the convent was a last resort.

The footsteps in the hallway drew closer. Finally, Mother Hanna walked by without pausing to regard her Daughters. She did not have time for foolish charity cases like Dariya and Helena, and she especially didn't feel like punishing the two rebels. Not a thing went on in the convent that Mother Hanna didn't know about, and that included Dariya's leniency. She made up for it with her own strictness, anyways.

"Can I go outside today, _sestra_?" Helena asked the nun, once Hanna was safely away from the door.

"I am sorry, but you know the rules."

Helena was permitted to leave the shelter of the convent once a week, and only ever at night. She had been told that she could visit the mausoleum today, but only if she took the underground tunnels. She'd messed even that up.

"_Ale _chomu!" She shouted, "but _why?_"

Dariya wished that she knew, but all she was told was that Helena was never to leave the convent in daytime. _It's for her own safety_, Mother Hanna and the more experienced nuns would say. Their word was law; it was gospel, so Dariya let the matter drop a few months ago.

Helena had snuck out in daylight hours a couple of times over the years, but she always got beaten severely for it. Eventually she stopped trying not because of the pain, but because experience taught her that the sun hurt her eyes anyways. She wasn't used to light other than the fluorescent type in her living quarters, and soft candlelight downstairs. Sunlight was so different – it sucked the pain out of bruises, and instead left Helena's skin with little pink burns that changed colours when she prodded them.

She looked out the window again at the little matches outside, running close to one another and then breaking away. A tall figure was walking up the path, dressed all in black. None of the nuns were that tall, and Helena looked quizzically at the silhouette. Who was that? A man?

Helena hadn't seen very many men in her life, as they weren't allowed in the walls of the convent. Sometimes a brother or father would visit one of Helena's Sisters, and the girl would steal glimpses of the brutish, hairy figures.

But the man walking up the path looked different. He was less hulking, more precise. He moved with the deliberateness of a surgeon, or like someone who had been to the convent many times before.

The lithe figure of Mother Hanna ran down the path towards the man, wringing her outstretched hands.

"_NEMAYE! NEMAYE! NEMAYE!" _

Helena heard the shouting all the way from her room on the second floor of the building. She curled her hands around the bars on the window, gripping them tightly. Other nuns were coming out to usher the children inside.

There was hushed whispering in the hallway.

Helena could make out only one word – or was it a name? _Tomas. _


End file.
